CHAPTER V.

THE COLLEGE AND THE “WIZARD WARDEN” OF MANCHESTER.

Of those who make up the mighty tide of human life that daily sweeps

along the great highway of traffic between the Manchester Exchange and

the Victoria Railway Station, how few there are who ever give even a

passing thought to the quaint mediæval relic that stands within a few

yards of them—almost the only relic of bygone days that Manchester now

possesses—the College. Pass through the arched portal into the great

quadrangle, the College Yard as it is called, and what a striking

contrast is presented. Without, all is noise and hurry and bustle;

within, quietude and seclusion prevail. The old place is almost

the only link that connects the Manchester of the present with the

Manchester of yore; and surely it is something to feel that within this

eager, striving, money-getting Babylon there is a little Zoar where you

may escape from the turmoil, and the whirl, and the worry of the busy

city, and, forgetting your own chronology, allow the memory to wander

along the dim grass-grown aisles of antiquity, recalling the scenes

and episodes and half-forgotten incidents that illustrate the changes

society has undergone, and show how the past may be made a guide for

the present and the future.

A wealth of interest gathers round this old time-worn memorial, and

its history is entwined with that of the town itself. That lively and

imaginative antiquary, Whitaker, has striven to prove that upon its

site the subjects of the Cæsars erected their summer camp, but the

story, it must be confessed, rests on but a slender foundation. There

is little doubt, however, that the Saxon thegn fixed his abode here,

and dispensed justice according to the rude fashion of the times—which

means that he did what seemed right in his own eyes, and hanged those

who ventured to question the propriety of his proceedings. The Norman

barons who succeeded him, the Gresleys and the La Warres, the men who

bore themselves well and bravely at Crecy, Agincourt, and Poictiers,

held their court here for generations, until good old Thomas La Warre,

the last of the line, the priest-lord as he has been called—for he held

the rectory as well as the barony of Manchester—gave up his ancestral

home as a permanent residence for the warden and fellows of the ancient

parish church which he caused to be collegiated. But the splendid

provision he bequeathed was not long enjoyed by the ecclesiastics

for whom it was intended. In 1547, when the minor religious houses

were suppressed, the college was dissolved, and the lands, with the

building of the College House, reverted to Edward VI., who granted them

to Edward Earl of Derby, subject to the payment by him of some small

pensions and other charges. On Queen Mary’s accession the Church was

re-collegiated, and the deeds of alienation in part recalled. But the

College House and the lands pertaining to it were never recovered,

though some of the wardens were considerately allowed by the Stanleys

to occupy part of the premises that had belonged of right to their

predecessors.

In the eventful times which followed, the building experienced many and

various vicissitudes. At the time the fierce struggle between Charles

I. and the Parliament began a part was used as a magazine for powder

and arms, for we read that when the Commission of Array was issued Sir

Alexander Radcliffe, of Ordsall, and his neighbour Mr. Prestwich, of

Hulme, two of the commissioners nominated in the King’s proclamation,

attended by the under sheriff, went to Manchester “to seize ten barrels

of powder and several bundles of match which were stowed in a room

of the College.” During the troublous times of the Commonwealth the

building was in the hands of the official sequestrators, as part of

the forfeited possessions of the Royalist Earl of Derby; and at that

time the monthly meetings of the Presbyterian Classis, the “X’sian

consciensious people” as they were called, were held within the

refectory. A part of the building was transformed into a prison, and

another portion was occupied as private dwellings. In 1650, as appears

by a complaint lodged in the Duchy Court of Lancaster, “a common

brewhouse” was set up on the premises, the brewers claiming exemption

from grinding their malt at the School Mills, to which by custom the

toll belonged, on the plea that the brewhouse was within the College,

the old baronial residence, and therefore did not owe such suit and

service to the mills.

About the same time a portion of the College barn (between the prison

and the College gatehouse) was converted into a workhouse, the first

in Manchester, having been acquired by the churchwardens and overseers

in order that it might be “made in readiness to set the poor people

on work to prevent their begging.” Another part was used for the

purposes of an Independent church, the first of the kind in the town,

and which would appear to have been set up without “waiting for a

civil sanction.” The minister was John Wigan, who at the outset of his

career had been episcopally ordained to Gorton, which place he left

in 1646, and fixed his abode at Birch, where, we are told, “he set up

Congregationalism.” This brought him in collision with the “Classis.”

Subsequently he left Birch, entered the army, became a captain, and

afterwards a major. The church which he founded in the College barn is

alluded to by Hollinworth. How it came to be established here would

be inexplicable but for the explanation Adam Martindale gives of the

matter. He says:—

The Colledge lands being sold, and the Colledge itself, to Mr.

Wigan, who now being turned Antipædobaptist, and I know not what

more, made a barne there into a chappell, where he and many of

his perswasion preached doctrine diametrically opposite to the

(Presbyterian) ministers’ perswasion under their very nose.

Wigan had contrived to attract the notice of Cromwell, and “received

some maintenance out of the sequestrations.” Whether with this and

from pillage and plunder while with the Republican army he obtained

money enough to purchase the lease of the College is not clear, but his

conduct during the later years of his life does not present him in a

very favourable light. During his time a survey of the College property

was made, and it then comprised:—

Ye large building called ye College in Manchester, consisting of

many rooms, with twoe barnes, one gatehouse, verie much decayd,

one parcell of ground, formerly an orchard, and one garden, now in

ye possession of Joseph Werden, gent., whose pay for ye same for

ye use of ye Commonwealth—tenn pounds yearly. There is likewise

one other room in ye said College Reserved and now made use of

for publique meetings of X’sian consciensious people (_i.e._, the

Classis).

Neither the sequestrators nor Mr. Wigan were at much pains to preserve

the fabric of the College while it was in their hands. The building and

outhousing fell into decay, and became ruinous; and there is little

doubt this interesting relic would have disappeared altogether but

for the timely interposition of one of Manchester’s most worthy sons.

Humphrey Chetham, a wealthy trader, who had amassed a considerable

fortune, conceived the idea of founding an hospital for the maintenance

and education of poor boys, and also the establishing of a public

library in his native town. He entered into negotiations with the

sequestrators for the purchase of the College, then, as we have seen,

in a sadly dilapidated condition, for the purpose. Owing to some

dispute, the project remained for a time in abeyance, but it was never

entirely abandoned; and in his will Chetham directed that his executors

should make the purchase, if it could be accomplished. After his death

this was done, the building was repaired, and from that time to the

present, a period of more than two hundred years, it has continued to

be occupied in accordance with the founder’s benevolent intentions.

Thus has been preserved to Manchester one of its oldest and most

interesting memorials.

Many and strange vicissitudes of fate

Those time-worn walls have seen. The dwelling once

Of servants of the Lord; in stormy days,

The home of Cromwell’s stern and armèd band,

A barracks and a prison! Now it stands

A lasting monument of Chetham’s fame,

Unto posterity a boon most rich—

A refuge for the child of poverty,

A still secluded haunt for studious men,

The college of a merchant.

Though a mighty change has been wrought in the surroundings, the

ancient pile looks pretty much the same as it must have done three

centuries ago, when Warden Dee, who then occupied it, was casting

horoscopes and practising alchemy, and when Drayton saw it, and in his

“Polyolbion” made the Irwell sing—

First Roche, a dainty rill....

And Irk add to my store.

And Medlock to their much by lending somewhat more;

At Manchester they meet, all kneeling to my state,

Where brave I show myself.

The Irwell and the Irk still mingle their waters round the base of

the rocky precipice on which the College stands, but alas for the

daintiness or bravery of either!

As you enter the spacious courtyard a long, low, monastic-looking

pile with two projecting wings meets the eye, presenting all that

quaintness and picturesque irregularity of outline so characteristic of

buildings of the mediæval period, with scarcely a feature to suggest

the busy life that is going on without its walls. On the right is the

great arched gateway giving admission from the Long Mill Gate, and

which in old times constituted the main entrance. At the opposite or

north-western angle is the principal entrance to the building itself.

As you pass through the low portal you notice on the right the great

kitchen, large and lofty and open to the roof, with its fireplace

capacious enough to roast an ox; adjoining is the pantry, and close

by that most important adjunct the buttery. On the other side of the

vestibule, and separated from it by a ponderous oaken screen, panelled

and ornamented, and black with age, is the ancient refectory or dining

hall, where the recipients of Chetham’s bounty assemble daily for their

meals and chant their “_Non nobis_.” It is a spacious apartment, with a

lofty arched roof and wide yawning fireplace, preserving not merely the

original form and appearance but the identical arrangement of the old

baronial and conventual halls. In pre-Reformation times this was the

chief entertaining room, and its appearance suggests the idea that in

those remote days the ecclesiastics of Manchester loved good cheer, and

were by no means sparing in their hospitalities. At the further end,

opposite the screen, may still be seen the ancient daīs, raised a few

inches above the general level of the floor, on which, in accordance

with custom, was placed the “hie board,” or table dormant, at which sat

the warden, his principal guests and the chief ecclesiastics ranged

according to their rank above the salt, whilst the inferior clergy

and others were accommodated at the side tables—the poor wandering

mendicant who, by chance, found himself at the door, and being admitted

to a humble share of the feast, taking his position near the screen,

and thankfully fed, like Lazarus, with the crumbs that fell from the

great man’s table.

At the further end of the vestibule you come upon the cloisters

surrounding a small court, and note the crumbling grey walls and

vaulted passages of this the most perfect and most characteristic

portion of the original building.

Just before reaching the cloisters, you ascend by a stone staircase,

guarded by massive oak balusters, that leads up to the library, where,

as “Alick” Wilson sings—

Booath far and woide,

Theer’s yards o’books at every stroide,

From top to bothum, eend and soide.

They are disposed in wall cases extending the length of the corridors,

and branching off into a series of mysterious-looking little recesses,

stored with material relics of the past, old manuscripts, and treasures

of antiquity and art of various kinds, each recess being protected

from the encroachments of the profane by its own lattice gate. Here

The dim windows shed a solemn light,

that is quite in keeping with the character of the place, and as you

pass along you marvel at the plenteous store of ponderous folios

and goodly quartos, in their plain sober bindings, that are ranged

on either side, and you reflect upon the world of thought and the

profundity of learning gathered together, until the mind becomes

impressed with a feeling of reverence for the mighty spirits whose

noblest works are here enshrined.

Until late years this gloomy corridor was at once a library and museum.

High up on the ceiling, on the tops of the bookcases and in the window

recesses, were displayed a formidable array of sights and monsters, as

varied and grotesque as those which appalled the heart of the Trojan

prince in his descent to hell—skeletons, snakes, alligators, to say

nothing of the “hairy man,” and such minor marvels as Queen Elizabeth’s

shoe, Oliver Cromwell’s sword,

An th’ clog fair crackt by thunner-bowt,

An th’ woman noather lawmt nor nowt.

Formerly, at Easter and other festivals, crowds of gaping holiday

folk thronged the College, and gazed with vacant wonderment at the

incongruous collection, while the blue-coated cicerones, to the

discomfort of the readers, in sonorous tones bawled out the names of

the trophies displayed, concluding their catalogue with an account

of the wondrous wooden cock that is said (and truly) to crow when

it smells roast beef. But the quietude is no longer broken by these

inharmonious chantings—the strange collection has been transferred

to a more fitting home, and the scholar may now store his mind with

“the physic of the soul” and hold pleasant intercourse with antiquity

without being rudely recalled to the consciousness of the present by

such startling incongruities.

At the end of the corridor a heavy oaken door admits you to the

reading-room, a large square antique chamber, with arched ceiling and

panelled walls, and a deeply-recessed oriel opposite the door, that

by the very cosiness of its appearance lures you to stay and drink

“at the pure well of English undefiled.” In the window lighting this

pleasant secluded nook is a shield on which the arms of the benevolent

Chetham are depicted in coloured glass—arms that gave him much trouble

to obtain, and the cost of which led him to facetiously remark that

they were not depicted in such good metal as that in which payment for

them was made, to which Lightbowne, his attorney, assented, sagely

observing, “there is soe much difference betwixt Paynter’s Gould and

Current Coyne,” a conclusion the correctness of which we will not stay

to dispute. No doubt it was the thought that he had “paid for his

whistle” that led the careful old merchant to adopt the suggestive

motto, “_Quod tuum tene_.” The furniture corresponds with the ancient

character of the room. In one corner is a carved oak buffet of ancient

date, with a raised inscription, setting forth that it was the gift

of Humphrey Chetham. There are ponderous chairs, with leather-padded

backs, studded with brass nails; and still more ponderous tables, one

of which we are gravely assured contains as many pieces as there are

days in the year. Over the fireplace, surmounted by his coat of arms,

is a portrait of the grave-visaged but large-hearted founder, with

pillars on each side, resting on books, and crowned with antique lamps,

suggestive of the founder’s desire to diffuse wisdom and happiness by

the light of knowledge; and, flanking them, on one side is a pelican

feeding its young with its own blood, and on the other the veritable

wooden cock already mentioned; antique mirrors are affixed to the

panelling; and dingy-looking portraits of Lancashire worthies gaze at

you from the walls—Nowell and Whitaker, and Bolton and Bradford, with

men who have reflected lustre upon the county in more recent times,

not the least interesting being the two portraits lately added of the

venerable president of the Chetham Society, and that indefatigable

bibliopole, the late librarian, Mr. Jones.

On the ground floor, beneath the reading-room, is an apartment of

corresponding dimensions, which at present more especially claims our

attention. It is commonly known as the Feoffees’ room; but in bygone

days it was appropriated to the use of the wardens of the College. It

is a large, square, sombre-looking chamber, with a projecting oriel

at one end, and small pointed windows, with deep sills and latticed

panes, that, if they do not altogether “exclude the light,” are yet

sufficiently dim to “make a noonday night.” As you cross the threshold

your footsteps echo on the hard oak floor—all else is still and silent.

A staid cloistered gloom, and a quiet, half monastic air pervades the

place that carries your fancies back to mediæval times. The walls for a

considerable height are covered with black oak wainscotting, surrounded

by a plaster frieze enriched with arabesque work. The ceiling is

divided into compartments by deeply-moulded beams and rafters that

cross and recross each other in a variety of ways, all curiously

wrought, and ornamented at the intersections with carvings of fabulous

creatures and grotesque faces. On one of the bosses is a grim-visaged

head, depicted as in the act of devouring a child, which tradition

affirms is none other than that of the giant Tarquin, who held

threescore and four of King Arthur’s knights in thraldom in his castle

at Knot Mill, and was afterwards himself there slain by the valorous

Sir Lancelot of the Lake, who cut off his head and set the captives

free; all which forms a very pretty story, though we are more inclined

to believe that the mediæval sculptor, thinking little and caring less

for Tarquin or the Arthurian knights, merely copied the model of some

pagan mason, and reproduced the burlesque figure of Saturn eating one

of his own children.[22] On one side of the room is a broad fireplace,

with the armorial ensigns of one of the Tudor sovereigns behind, and

those of the benevolent Chetham on the frieze above. The whole of the

furniture is in character with the place—quaint, old-fashioned, and

substantial. Shining tall-backed chairs are disposed around the room,

and in the centre is a broad table of such massiveness as almost to

defy the efforts of muscular power to remove it.

[Note 22: In the church of Mont Mijour there is a bracket on which

is carved a head devouring a child, closely resembling the one in

the warden’s room of the College, and supposed to be intended for a

caricature of Saturn.]

A special interest attaches to this sombre-looking chamber from the

circumstance that tradition has associated it with the name of Dr.

Dee, the “Wizard Warden” of Manchester, and that here Roby has laid

the scene of one of his most entertaining Lancashire Legends. In this

“vaulted room of gramarye,” it is said, our English “Faust” had his

Mystic implements of magic might,

practised the occult sciences, cast his nativities, transmuted the

baser metals to gold, and, as the common people believed, held familiar

intercourse with the Evil One, and did other uncanny things. But of Dee

and his doings we purpose to speak anon.

The wardenship of Dr. Dee forms a curious chapter in the ecclesiastical

history of Manchester, and at the same time presents us with a

humiliating picture of the condition of society in the golden days

of the Virgin Queen. It has been said that witchcraft came in with

the Stuarts and went out with them; but this is surely an injustice

to the memory of Elizabeth’s sapient successor, for the belief in

sorcery, witchcraft, enchantment, demonology, and practices of a

kindred nature were widely prevalent long ere that monarch ascended the

English throne. Henry VIII., in 1531, granted a formal licence to “two

learned clerks” “to practise sorcery and to build churches,” a curious

combination of evil and its antidote; and ten years later he, with

his accustomed inconsistency, issued a decree making “witchcraft and

sorcery felony, without benefit of clergy.”

The belief in these abominations was not confined to any one class

of the people, or to the professors of any one form of faith. On the

contrary, Churchmen, Romanists, and Puritans were alike the dupes of

the loathsome impostors who roamed the country, though each in turn

was ready to upbraid the others with being believers in the generally

prevailing error, and not unfrequently with being participators in

the frauds that were practised. The great and munificent Edward,

Earl of Derby, “kept a conjuror in his house secretly;” and his

daughter-in-law, Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby, lost the favour

of Queen Elizabeth for a womanish curiosity in “consulting with wizards

or cunning men.” The bishops gave authority and a form of licence to

the clergy to cast out devils; Romish ecclesiastics claimed to have

a monopoly of the power; and the Puritan ministers, not to be behind

them, tried their hands at the imposture.

Education had then made little progress, and the men of Lancashire,

though the merriest of Englishmen, were as ignorant and superstitious

as they were merry. Nowhere was the belief in supernatural agency more

rife than in the Palatinate. The shaping power of the imagination had

clothed every secluded clough and dingle with the weird drapery of

superstition, and made every ruined or solitary tenement the abode of

unhallowed beings, who were supposed to hold their diabolical revelries

within it. The doctrines of necromancy and witchcraft were in common

belief, and it is doubtful if there was a single man in the county who

did not place the most implicit faith in both. Hence, Queen Elizabeth,

if it was not that she wished to get rid of a troublesome suitor, may

have thought there was a fitness of things in preferring a professor

of the Black Art to the wardenship of Manchester; believing, possibly,

that one given to astrology, and such like practices, could not find

a more congenial home than in a county specially prone, as Lancashire

then was, to indulge in _diablerie_ and the practice of alchemy and

enchantment.

A brief reference to the earlier career of Dr. Dee may not be

altogether uninteresting. According to the genealogy drawn up by

himself, he belonged to the line of Roderick the Great, Prince of

Wales. His father, Rowland Dee, who was descended from a family settled

in Radnorshire, carried on the business of a vintner in London; and

there, or rather at Mortlake, within a few miles of the city, on

the 13th July, 1527, the future warden first saw the light. After

receiving a preliminary education at one or two of the city schools,

and subsequently at the Grammar School of Chelmsford, he entered St.

John’s College, Cambridge, being then only fifteen years of age; and

during the five years he remained there he maintained, with unflinching

strictness, the rule “only to sleepe four houres every night; to allow

to meate and drink (and some refreshing after), two houres every day;

and,” he adds, “of the other eighteen houres, all (except the tyme

of going to and being at divine service) was spent in my studies

and learning.” On leaving the University he passed some time in the

Low Countries, his object being “to speake and conferr with some

learned men, and chiefly mathematicians.” He made the acquaintance of

Frisius, Mercator, Antonius Gogara, and other celebrated Flemings;

and on his return to England he was chosen to be a Fellow of King

Henry’s newly-erected College of Trinity, and made under-reader of the

Greek tongue. His reputation stood very high, and his mathematical

and astronomical pursuits, in which he was assisted by some rare and

curious instruments—among them, as we are told, an “astronomer’s staff

of brass, that was made of Gemma Frisius’ divising; the two great

globes of Gerardus Mercator’s making; and the astronomer’s ring of

brass, as Gemma Frisius had newly framed it,” which he had brought

from Flanders—drew upon him among the common people the suspicion of

being a conjuror, an opinion that was strengthened by his getting up

at Cambridge a Greek play, the comedy of “Aristophanes,” in which,

according to his own account, he introduced “the Scarabeus his flying

up to Jupiter’s pallace, with a man and his basket of victualls on

her back; whereat was great wondring, and many vaine reportes spread

abroad of the meanes how that was affected.” Though causing “great

wondring,” and seeming at that time too marvellous to be accomplished

by human agency, it was in all probability only a clumsy performance,

and much inferior to the ordinary transformation scene of a modern

pantomime. The “vaine reportes,” however, led to Dee’s being accused of

magical practices, and he found it expedient to leave the University,

having first obtained his degree of Master of Arts. In 1548 he went

abroad and entered as a student at Louvain, where his philosophical

and mathematical skill brought him under the notice of some of the

continental _savants_. Apart from his intellectual power, he must in

his earlier years have possessed considerable charms both of person and

manner, for he contrived to gain friends and win admiration wherever he

went. He was consulted by men of the highest rank and station from all

parts of Europe, and before he left Louvain he had the degree of Doctor

of Laws conferred upon him.

On quitting that University, in 1550, he proceeded to Paris, where

he turned the heads of the French people, who became almost frenzied

in their admiration of him. He read lectures on Euclid’s Elements—“a

thing,” as he says, “never done publiquely in any University of

Christendome,” and his lectures were so fully attended that the

mathematical school could not hold all his auditors, who clambered

up at the windows and listened at the doors as best they could. A

mathematical lectureship, with a yearly stipend of 200 crowns, and

several other honourable offices were also offered him from “five

Christian Emperors,” among them being an invitation from the Muscovite

Emperor to visit Moscow, where he was promised an income at the

Imperial hands of £2,000 a year, his diet free out of the Emperor’s

kitchen, and to be in dignity and authority among the highest of the

nobility; but he preferred to reside in his native country, and,

foregoing these inducements, he returned to England in 1551.

The fame of his marvellous acquirements had preceded him, and on

his arrival he was presented by Secretary Cecil to the young King,

Edward VI., who granted him a pension of 100 crowns a year, which

was soon “bettered,” as he says, by his “bestowing on me (as it were

by exchange) the rectory of Upton-upon-Seaverne,” in Worcestershire,

and to this was added the rectory of Long Leadenham, in Lincolnshire.

Though holding these two benefices, it is somewhat remarkable that Dee

does not appear to have ever been admitted to Holy Orders. There is no

very clear evidence that he at any time occupied his Worcestershire

parsonage, but he must have been resident for a while at Long

Leadenham, for at that place a stone has been found inscribed with his

name and sundry cabalistic figures, indicating that he had at some time

lived in the parish. If he ever resided at Upton-upon-Severn he must

have found an uncongenial neighbour in Bishop Bonner, who then held the

living of Ripple—for the one was visionary, sensitive, and unpractical,

and the other stern, cruel, and unscrupulous, while on religious and

political questions their views were as wide apart as the poles.

On the 6th of July, 1553, Edward VI. finished his “short but saintly

course,” and the solemn sound then heard from the bell-towers of

England, while it announced the fact of his decease, crushed the hopes

of Dee, for a time at least, and in a proportionate degree raised the

expectations of Bonner. Mary had not been many months upon the throne

before Dee was accused of carrying on a correspondence with Princess

Elizabeth’s servants and of compassing the Queen’s death by means

of enchantments. He was cast into prison and tried upon the charge

of high treason, but acquitted; after which he was turned over to

Bonner to see if heresy might not be proved against him. Christian

martyrdom, however, was not in Mr. Dee’s vocation, and so, after

six months’ detention, on giving satisfaction to the Queen’s Privy

Council, and entering into recognisances “for ready appearing and

good abearing for four months longer,” he was set at liberty August

19, 1555, to find that during his incarceration his rectory had been

bestowed upon the Dean of Worcester, Bonner having detained him in

captivity in order that he might have the disposal of his preferment.

The following characteristic letter, written about this time, and

addressed from the Continent (endorsed “fro Callice to Bruxells”), has

been recently unearthed from among the Marian State papers by that

painstaking antiquary, Mr. J. Eglinton Bailey, F.S.A., and printed in

Mr. Earwaker’s “Local Gleanings:”

My dutye premysed unto youre good L’rdshype as hyt apperteynethe.

This daye abowt iiij of the clocke at after noone my L.

Chawncelare (Gardyner) taketh his Jorneye toward England havynge

rather made a meane to a peace to be hereafter condyscendyd unto,

than a peace at thys tyme yn any pointe determyned. In England

all ys quyete. Souch as wrote trayterouse l’res (letters) ynto

Germany be apprehendyd as lykewyse oothers yt dyd calculate ye

kynge and quene and my Lady Elizabeth natyvytee, wherof on Dee and

Cary and butler, and on ooyr of my Lady Elezabeths ... ar accused

and yt they should have a famylyare sp(irit) wch ys ye moore

susp’ted, for yt fferys on of ther a(ccu)sers-hadd ymedyatly upon

thaccusatys bothe hys chyldr(en) strooken, the on wth put deathe,

thother wth blyndnes. Thys trustynge shortly to doe youe yn an

ooyr place bettre servyce I bed yowr good Lordshype most hartily

to farewell. Wryte ffro Cales ye viijth of June.

Yowr Lordshyps most asured

THO. MARTYN.

Happily for Dee, Mary’s reign was not of long duration, and on the

accession of Elizabeth he was at once restored to the sunshine of Royal

favour and courted by the wealthy and the great. He was consulted

by Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, by the Queen’s

desire, respecting “a propitious day” for her coronation, and he says,—

I wrote at large and delivered it for Her Majesty’s use, by the

commandment of the Lord Robert, what in my judgment the ancient

astrologers would determine on the election day of such a time as

was appointed for Her Majesty to be crowned in.

At the same time he was presented to the Queen, who made him great

promises, not always fulfilled—amongst others, that where her brother

Edward “had given him a crown she would give him a noble.”

Dee was a great favourite with Elizabeth, who could well appreciate

his intellectual power, coupled as it was with some personal graces.

She frequently visited him at his house to confer with him and to have

peeps at futurity; and nothing perhaps better illustrates the faith the

“Virgin Queen” had in his astrological powers than the circumstance of

her consulting him, as other virgins in less exalted stations consult

“wise men,” upon the subject of her matrimonial projects, and also that

she had her nativity cast in order to ascertain if she could marry with

advantage to the nation. The credulous Queen placed the most implicit

confidence in Dee’s predictions. She was full of hope that the genius

and learning which had already worked such wonders would accomplish yet

more, and that he would eventually succeed in penetrating the two great

mysteries—the Elixir Vitæ and the Philosopher’s Stone—those secrets

which would endue her with perpetual youth and fill her treasury with

inexhaustible wealth.

The fame of the English seer became more and more widely spread.

Invitations poured in upon him from foreign courts, and his visits to

the Continent became frequent. In 1563 he was at Venice; the same year,

or the one following, he was at Antwerp, superintending the printing of

his “Monas Hyeroglyphica.” An original copy of this work is preserved

in the Manchester Free Library. Casauban acknowledges that, though

it was a little book, he could extract no reason or sense out of it.

Possibly he was one of those who, as Dee says, “dispraised it because

they understood it not.” Let us hope Dee’s patron was more fortunate,

for she had the advantage of reading it under the guidance of its

author, in her palace at Greenwich, after his return from beyond seas.

The book is dedicated to the Emperor Maximilian, to whom Dee presented

it in person, being at the time, as there is some reason to believe, on

a secret mission, for Lilly says, “he was the Queen’s intelligencer,

and had a salary for his maintenance from the Secretaries of State.”

After his return, he was sent for on one occasion, “to prevent the

mischief which divers of Her Majesty’s Privy Council suspected to be

intended against Her Majesty, by means of a certain image of wax, with

a great pin stuck into it, about the breast of it, found in Lincoln’s

Inn Fields,” and this, we are told, he did “in a godly and artificial

manner.” In 1571 he again went abroad, and while returning became

dangerously ill at Lorraine, where the Queen despatched two English

physicians “with great speed from Hampton Court,” to attend him, “sent

him divers rareties to eat, and the Honourable Lady Sydney to attend on

him, and comfort him with divers speeches from Her Majesty, _pithy_ and

_gracious_.” On his return he settled in the house which had belonged

to his father, at Mortlake, in Surrey, a building on the banks of the

Thames, a little westward of the church. Here for some time he led a

life of privacy and study, collecting books and manuscripts, beryls and

magic crystals, talismans, &c., his library, it is said, consisting of

more than 4,000 volumes, the fourth part of which were MSS., the whole

being valued at the time at more than £2,000.

In his “Compendious Rehearsall” there is a curious account of a visit

which Elizabeth, attended by many of her Court, made to his house at

Mortlake:—

1575 10 Martii.—The Queens Majestie, with her Most honourable

Privy Councell, and other her lords and nobility, came purposely

to have visited my library; but finding that my wife was within

four houres before buried out of the house, her Majestie refused

to come in; but willed me to fetch my glass so famous, and to shew

unto her some of the properties of it, which I did; her Majestie

being taken downe from her horse (by the Earle of Leicester,

Master of the horse, by the Church wall of Mortlak), did see

some of the properties of that glass, to her Majestie’s great

contentment and delight, and so in most gracious manner did thank

me, &c.

The glass is supposed to have been of a convex form, and so managed as

to show the reflection of different figures and faces.

On the 8th October, 1578, the Queen had a conference with Dee, at

Richmond, and on the 16th of the same month she sent her physician,

Dr. Bayly, to confer with him “about her Majestie’s grievous pangs

and paines by reason of toothake and the rheum, &c.;” and before the

close of the year he was sent a journey of over 1,500 miles by sea and

land, “to consult with the learned physitions and philosophers (_i.e._

astrologers) beyond the seas for her Majestie’s health recovering and

preserving; having by the right honourable Earle of Leicester and Mr.

Secretary Walsingham but one hundred days allowed to go and come in.”

After his return, Elizabeth honoured him with another visit, as appears

by the following entry in his “Diary”:—

1580. Sept. 17th.—The Quene’s Majestie came from Rychemond in her

coach, the higher way of Mortlak felde, and when she came right

against the Church she turned down toward my howse; and when she

was against my garden in the felde she stode there a good while,

and then came ynto the street at the great gate of the felde,

when she espyed me at my doore making obeysciens to her Majestie;

she beckend her hand for me; I came to her coach side, she very

speedily pulled off her glove and gave me her hand to kiss; and to

be short, asked me to resort to her court, and to give her to wete

when I cam ther.

In less than a month he received another visit from his patron, when

the shadow of death was over his house; for his mother, who shared the

house at Mortlake with him, had expired a few hours before the arrival

of the Royal party. This time Elizabeth seems to have come less to

please herself than to comfort her favourite:—

Oct. 10th.—The Quene’s Majestie, to my great comfort (_hora

quinta_), cam with her trayn from the court, and at my dore

graciously calling me to her, on horsbak, exhorted me briefly to

take my mother’s death patiently; and withall told me that the

Lord Threasorer had gretly commended my doings for her title,

which he had to examyn, which title in two rolls, he had browght

home two hours before; she remembred allso how at my wive’s death

it was her fortune likewise to call uppon me.

The “title” alluded to had reference to the doubts Elizabeth affected

to have as to her right to rule over the new countries that were at

the time being discovered by her gallant sea captains, when, to ease

her scruples, she had desired Dee to give her a full account of the

newly-found regions. This he did in a few days, producing two large

rolls, which he delivered to the Queen “in the garden at Richmond;” and

in which not only the geography, but also the history, of the English

colonies throughout the world was given at length. Dee must have made

a liberal draught upon his imagination in producing such a work; and

Elizabeth, credulous as she was, could hardly have looked upon his

account of Virginia or Florida or Newfoundland as trustworthy history.

She wished to believe it, however, and therefore signified her gracious

approval of Dee’s production, much to the disgust of Burleigh, who in

the Queen’s presence openly expressed his disbelief; and when, four

days later, Dee attended at the Lord Treasurer’s house, he refused

to admit him, and when he came forth, as he says, “did not, or would

not, speak to me, I doubt not of some new grief conceyved.” On further

examination of the writings, Burleigh’s misgivings may have been

removed, or, as is much more likely, deeming it unwise to provoke a

quarrel with one whom the Queen delighted to honour, he strove to make

amends for his discourtesy, for he sent Dee a haunch of venison three

weeks after. Though the breach was healed, the scholar’s fear of the

Lord Treasurer was not altogether dispelled, if we may judge from a

dream with which he was troubled shortly afterwards, when, as he says—

I dreamed that I was deade; and afterwards my bowels were taken

out. I walked and talked with diverse, and among other with the

Lord Threasorer, who was come to my house to burn my bones when I

was dead, and thought he looked sourely on me.

Mr. Disraeli, in his “Amenities of Literature,” rightly estimated the

character of the “Wizard Warden” of Manchester when he remarked that

“the imagination of Dee often predominated over his science—while both

were mingling in his intellectual habits, each seemed to him to confirm

the other. Prone to the mystical lore of what was termed the occult

sciences, which in reality are no sciences at all, since whatever

remains occult ceases to be science, Dee lost his better genius.”

Casaubon maintains that throughout he acted with sincerity, but this

may be very well doubted. It is true that until he dabbled in magical

arts he gave most of his time and talents to science and literature,

but in the later years of his life he laid aside every pursuit that did

not aid in his alchemical and magical studies, and rapidly degenerated

into the mere necromancer and adventurer. Conjuror or not, he sported

with conjuror’s tools; and when in the ardour of his enthusiasm he

claimed to hold intercourse with angelic beings whom he could summon

to his presence at his will, and boasted the possession of a crystal

given him by the Angel Uriel, which enabled him to reveal all secrets,

he naturally subjected himself to suspicions which, as he afterwards

lamented, “tended to his utter undoing.”

Many of the incidents of his life are recorded in his “Private Diary,”

edited for the Camden Society by Mr. J. Orchard Halliwell, and the

portion relating to the period of his wardenship of Manchester has

since been edited from the autograph MSS. in the Bodleian Library, with

copious notes, and the errors of the Camden edition corrected by Mr. J.

Eglinton Bailey. This journal gives a curious insight into the private

life and real character of the strange yet simple-minded writer,

relating, as it does with much circumstantial detail, his family

affairs, his labours and rewards, and his trials and tribulations.

There are notes of the visits paid to him by great people; of his

attendances at Court; entries of those who consulted him as to the

casting of their nativities; particulars of moneys borrowed from time

to time (for, though he received large fees and presents, he was almost

continuously in a state of impecuniosity); and the ordinary small talk

of a common-place book. On the 15th June, 1579, his mother surrendered

the house at Mortlake to him, with reversion to his wife and his

heirs. On the 5th February in the preceding year he had married, as

his second wife, a daughter of Mr. Bartholomew Fromonds, of East

Cheam, a fellow-worker in alchemical pursuits, the lady being 23 years

of age and Dee 51. They do not appear to have had many sympathies

in common. She was a strong-minded, shrewd, managing woman, with a

somewhat vixenish temper, who exercised considerable influence over

her visionary and unpractical husband, and kept him in awe of her,

though not sufficiently to restrain his reckless expenditure on books,

manuscripts, and scientific instruments. Occasionally he complains of

her irritability, but it must be confessed that, with her domestic

cares, the worry of her “mayds,” the sickness of her children, and the

difficulty she had in getting from her mystical husband sufficient

money for the needful expenses of her household, the poor woman had

anxieties enough to try the most enduring patience and sour the

sweetest temper. On one occasion he writes: “Jane most desperately

angry in respect of her maydes;” at another time he puts up a prayer

to the angels that she may be cured of some malady that so she may “be

of a quieter mind, and not so testy and fretting as she hath been.”

And again, “Katharin (a child under eight years) by a blow on the eare

given by her mother did bled at the nose very much, which did stay for

an howre and more; afterward she did walk into the town with nurse;

upon her coming home she bled agayn.”

Though Dee was much noticed and flattered by Elizabeth, the preferment

she so often promised him was slow in coming; perhaps it was that the

calculating Queen wished to ascertain the full value of his horoscope,

which could be only done by the efflux of time, though, if the

prosperity of her reign depended upon the day he had chosen for her

coronation, she then had abundant proof of his magical skill. Dee was

beginning to lose heart, his finances were getting low, he was in the

usurer’s hands, and his pecuniary obligations were disquieting him. At

this time came the crisis of his life. In 1581 he formed the disastrous

friendship with Kelly, whom he took into his service as an assistant in

his alchemical and astrological labours.

This individual, whose dealings in the Black Art would fill a volume,

was a crafty and unscrupulous schemer—a clever rogue, who, without a

tithe of the learning or genius of Dee, contrived to work upon his

credulity to such an extent that Dee believed him to have the power of

seeing, hearing, and holding “conversations with spirituall creatures”

that were invisible and inaudible to Dee himself. Kelly, who was

nearly thirty years the junior of Dee, having been born in 1555, “left

Oxford,” says Mr. John Eglinton Bailey, in his admirable notes to the

reprint of Dee’s “Diary,” “abruptly to ramble in Lancashire,” and

for some delinquencies, coining it is said, had his ears cut off at

Lancaster. Mr. Bailey says that he had been a lawyer, and Lilly states

on the authority of his sister that he had practised as an apothecary

at Worcester. Of a restless, roving, and ambitious disposition, he was

Everything by turns, and nothing long.

It was his practice to raise the dead by incantations, and to consult

the corpse for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge, as he pretended,

of the fate of the living. Weever, in his “Ancient Funeral Monuments”

(p. 45), says that upon a certain night in the park of Walton-le-Dale,

near Preston, with one Paul Wareing, of Clayton Brook, he invoked one

of the infernal regiment to know certain passages in the life, as also

what might be known of the devil’s foresight of the manner and time

of the death, of a young nobleman in Wareing’s wardship. The ceremony

being ended, Kelly and his companion repaired to the church of Walton,

where they dug up the body of a man recently interred, and whom, by

their incantations, they made to deliver strange predictions concerning

the same gentleman, who was probably present and anxious to read a

page in the book of futurity. This feat, which was no doubt performed

by a kind of ventriloquism, is also mentioned by Casaubon. It is not

said when the circumstance occurred, but a local historian, anxious

to supply the omission, gives the date August 12, 1560, and says that

Dee was present. This, however, must be an error, for Kelly could then

have been only five years of age, and Dee did not make his acquaintance

until long afterwards.

Kelly was a notorious alchemist and necromancer long before Dee became

associated with him, and after the unfortunate intimacy commenced he

acted as his amanuensis, and performed for him the office of “seer,”

by looking into the doctor’s magic crystal,[23] a faculty he himself

did not possess, and hence he was obliged to have recourse to Kelly for

the revelations from the spirit world. It would seem, therefore, that

“mediums” are by no means a modern invention. Dee says he was brought

into unison with him by the mediation of the Angel Uriel, and their

dealings and daily conferences with the spirits are fully recorded in

Casaubon’s work, entitled, “A True and Faithful Relation of what passed

for many years between Dr. John Dee and some Spirits.” They had a black

spectrum or crystal—a piece of polished cannel coal, in which Kelly

affirmed the Angels Gabriel and Raphael, and the whole Rosicrucian

hierarchy, appeared at their invocation—and hence the author of

“Hudibras” says,—

Kelly did all his feats upon

The devil’s looking-glass—a stone;

Where playing with him at bo-peep

He solved all problems ne’er so deep.

[Note 23: Dee’s magic crystal, or show stone, was preserved at

Strawberry Hill until that famous collection was dispersed. A

correspondent in _Notes and Queries_ (2nd S., No. 201) says that John

Varley, the painter, well known to have been attached to astrology,

used to relate a tradition that the Gunpowder Plot was discovered by

Dr. Dee with his magic mirror; and he urged the difficulty, if not the

impossibility, of interpreting Lord Mounteagle’s letter without some

other clue or information than hitherto gained. In a Common Prayer

Book, printed by Baskett in 1737, is an engraving of the following

scene: In the centre is a circular mirror on a stand, in which is

the reflection of the Houses of Parliament by night, and a person

entering carrying a dark lantern. Next, on the left side are two men

in the costume of James’s time, looking into the mirror—one evidently

the King, the other evidently, from his secular habit, not the doctor

(Dee), but probably Sir Kenelm Digby. On the right side, at the top,

is the eye of Providence darting a ray on the mirror; and below are

some legs and hoofs, as if evil spirits were flying out of the picture.

The plate is inserted before the service for the 5th November, and

would seem to represent the method by which, under Providence (as is

evidenced by the eye), the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot was at that

time seriously believed to have been effected. The tradition must have

been generally and seriously believed, or it never could have found its

way into a Prayer Book printed by the King’s printer.]

When an incantation was to take place, “The sacred crystal was placed

on a sort of altar before a crucifix, with lighted candles on either

side, and an open Psalter before it,” and prayers and ejaculations

of the most fervid description were intermingled with the account

taken down at Kelly’s dictation of the dress and hair, as well as the

sayings and movements, of the angels. Dee was infatuated with his new

acquaintance, and every experiment he suggested was tried, at whatever

cost, and hence it was not long before Kelly’s weak and credulous dupe

found himself in straitened circumstances. It was at this time that the

Earl of Leicester, the Queen’s favourite, proposed dining with him at

Mortlake and bringing Albert Lasque, the Palatine of Sieradz, who was

then in England, with him, when Dee had to explain that he could not

give them a suitable dinner without selling some of his plate or pewter

to procure it. Leicester mentioned the circumstance to the Queen, who

speedily helped her old favourite out of the difficulty by sending him

“forty angells of gold.” He thus relates the circumstance:—

Her Majestie (A. 1583 Julii ultimo) being informed by the right

honourable Earle of Leicester, that whereas the same day in the

morning he had told me, that his Honour and Lord Laskey would dyne

with me within two daies after, I confessed sincerely unto him,

that I was not able to prepaire them a convenient dinner, unless

I should presently sell some of my plate or some of my pewter for

it. Whereupon her Majestie sent unto me very royally, within one

hour after, forty angells of gold, from Syon, whither her Majestie

was new come by water from Greenewich.

At the same time he makes the following entry in his “Diary”:—

Mr. Rawlegh his letter unto me of hir Majestie’s good disposition

unto me.

the writer being Sir Walter Raleigh, who was then in great favour with

Elizabeth, and himself a patron of Dee’s.

The visit of Count Lasque was an important event in Dee’s career. The

Polish noble was accounted of great learning, and fond of “occult

studies.” He paid frequent visits to the house at Mortlake, where he

was admitted to the _séances_ of the English magician, and became much

impressed with his learning and professed knowledge of the mystical

world. When the time came for Lasque to return he suggested that

Dee should go out with him to Poland, with his wife and children,

accompanied by Kelly and his wife and brother, and their servants.

When in his castle at Sieradz they could make their experiments in

undisturbed seclusion. Seeing no prospect of the fulfilment of the

promises made to him at home, and being hampered with debt, Dee, who

was then in his 57th year, was nothing loth to try his fortune abroad

once more. They left in September, and it was six years before any of

them again set foot on English soil. The departure is thus recorded in

the “Diary”:—

Sept. 21st (1583).—We went from Mortlake, and so to the Lord

Albert Lasky, I, Mr. E. Kelly, our wives, my children and familie,

we went toward our two ships attending for us, seven or eight myle

below Gravessende.

The period of their residence abroad was a chequered one, and many

and extraordinary were their adventures and experiences, alternating

between honour and discredit—between luxury and distress. For many

months they were hospitably entertained by Count Lasque while engaged

in their researches for the Philosopher’s Stone, but finding that

they spent more gold than they were able to produce he got tired, and

persuaded them to pay a visit to Rudolph, King of Bohemia, who, though

a weak and credulous man, soon became conscious of the imposture that

was being practised, and passed them on to Stephen, King of Poland,

at Cracow, but he declined to have anything to do with them, and the

Emperor Rudolph refused to pay their expenses, or further encourage

their experiments, though he permitted them to reside at Prague, and

occasionally to appear at Court, until they were banished from the

country at the instigation of the Pope’s Nuncio, who stigmatised them

as “notorious magicians.” Dee lamented the “subtill devises and plotts”

laid against him, and pathetically added, “God best knoweth how I

was very ungodly dealt withall, when I meant all truth, sincerity,

fidelity, and piety towardes God, and my Queene, and country.”

The old man had surrendered himself entirely to Kelly. Under his

iniquitous influence he degenerated into a mere necromancer, and was

sinking more and more into discredit. On leaving Bohemia the two

adventurers found an asylum in the Castle of Trebona, whither the

Count of Rosenberg had invited them, and where, for a time, they were

maintained in great affluence, owing, as they affirmed, to their

discovery of the secret of transmuting the baser metals into gold.

Kelly would seem to have learned some secrets from the German chemists

which he did not reveal to his employer, but by their possession

contrived to increase his influence over him, while he himself had

recourse to the worst species of the magic art for the purposes of

avarice and fraud. It was while at Trebona that Kelly produced the

wonderful elixir, or Philosopher’s Stone, in the form of a powder,

which Lilly, in his “Memoirs,” says he obtained from a friar who

came to Dee’s door. With this “powder of projection,” or “salt of

metals,” as it was variously called, they were enabled to coat the

baser metals with silver or gold, and would seem to have hit upon the

process which, a century and a half later, Joseph Hancock introduced

into Sheffield—that of electro-plating. Among other transmutations

they converted a piece of an old iron warming pan, by warming it at

the fire, into (or covered it with) silver, and sent it to Queen

Elizabeth.[24] Why, when they were about it, they did not “transmute”

the whole pan is not stated, but it would seem they were not able

to work the discovery easily or quickly enough to make it pay, for

heart-burnings, jealousies, and disputations arose, and quarrels became

of frequent occurrence. At one time Kelly got such a hold upon his dupe

as to persuade him that it was the Divine will that they should have

their wives in common; then a rupture occurred between the ladies, who,

however, became reconciled to each other, and we have the entries in

the Diary—

April 10th (1588).—I writ to Mr. Edward Kelly and to Mistress

Kelly ij charitable letters requiring at theyr hands mutual

charity.

And—

May 22nd.—Mistris Kelly received the sacrament and to me and my

wife gave her hand in charity; and we rushed not from her.

Peace was restored, but it must have been of short duration, for we

find a few months later—

July 17th.—Mr. Thomas Southwell of his own courteous nature did

labor with Mr. Edmond Cowper, and indirectly with Mistress Kelly,

for to furder charity and friendship among us.

[Note 24: Ashmole, in his MS., 1790, fol. 58, says, “Mr. Lilly told me

that John Evans informed him that he was acquainted with Kelly’s sister

in Worcester, that she showed him some of the gold her brother had

transmuted, and that Kelly was first an apothecary at Worcester.”]

True to his sordid and scheming nature, Kelly, who had become a

full-blown knight, contrived to possess himself of the greater part of

Dee’s treasures—“the powder, the bokes, the glass, and the bone”—and

then, having no longer any need of the old man’s co-operation, took

himself off to earn elsewhere a success that, however, proved only

very short-lived, for it was not long before, being detected in some

knavery, he fell into disgrace, and was immured by the Emperor Rudolph

in one of the prisons of Prague. Queen Elizabeth hearing of him, sent a

messenger—Captain Peter Gwinne—secretly for him to return; but he was

doomed to end his days in a foreign land, for in an attempt to escape

from one of the windows of the castle he fell to the ground, and was so

bruised and shattered that he died in a few hours—his elixir, it would

seem, not being sufficient to communicate immortality to its possessor.

Forsaken by his companion, Dee resolved on returning to England.

Elizabeth, who had heard of the doings of the two adventurers, and

being, moreover, much impressed with the silvered piece of the

warming pan, sent the doctor friendly messages desiring his return,

with letters of safe conduct, and Lord Rosenberg, who had welcomed

the coming, was now no less hearty in speeding his parting guests,

an attention that is not surprising when it is remembered that for

two years or more he had had quartered upon him two families who

maintained somewhat questionable relations, and lived upon anything

but friendly terms with each other—two quarrelsome women, a whole bevy

of turbulent and unruly children, and a staff of servants that were

continually causing disquiet by their “unthankfulnesse” and discontent;

to say nothing of a brace of conjurors who crowded his castle, or, at

least, were believed to, with imps, hobgoblins, and ghostly visitants

of various kinds, and who there practised all sorts of _diablerie_.

The count made him magnificent promises, and gave him a present of

money; and we can quite believe that he and those about him were not

very much overcome when Dee and his household divinities left Trebona

Castle and turned their faces homewards. They travelled with great pomp

and state, having “three new coaches made purposely for my foresaid

journey,” “twelve coach horses,” “two and sometymes three waines,”

with “twenty-four soldiers,” and “four Swart-Ruiters,” as a guard

of honour; the “total summe of money spent” being £796—well-nigh

sufficient for a royal progress. On November 19, 1589, the Dees

“toke ship by the Vineyard,” and December 2nd “came into the Tems to

Gravesende.” They landed the following day, and on the 19th the doctor

was “at Richemond with the Queen’s Majestie,” when, according to

Aubrey, who received the information from Lilly, he was very favourably

received.

Though Dee and his family “cam into the Tems” on the 2nd December, it

was not until Christmas Day that they again entered upon possession

of the old home at Mortlake. And a comfortless coming home and a

sorrowful Christmas Day must have been that 25th of December, 1589.

Courted by “Christian Emperors,” Dee had lived long enough to realise

the value of the aphorism which says “Put not your trust in princes!”

Feeble with years, broken in health, and overwhelmed by his losses

and disappointments, the old man chafed and became fretful; while his

comparatively youthful spouse—for Jane Dee was then in the prime of

womanhood—was becoming increasingly irritable under the increasing

cares of a growing family, and the difficulties she experienced in

obtaining even decent food and raiment for them.

On reaching their once pleasant abode on the banks of the Thames, they

found it dismantled and in part dilapidated. While abroad, silvering

his old warming-pan and dreaming dreams of inexhaustible wealth, Dee

had little dreamed of what was going on at home. Scarcely had he

and his quondam associate reached the castle of Count Lasque than

Nicholas Fromonds, his brother-in-law, who had been left in charge

of the old house, and was to occupy it as tenant, “imbezeled,” sold,

and “unduly made away” his furniture and “household stuff;” and a

noisy rabble, believing that the old man had dealings with the devil,

broke in, ransacked the whole place, and destroyed nearly everything

that remained. Scarcely anything was left. 4,000 volumes, including

the precious manuscripts, that had taken more than 40 years to get

together, and had cost him £2,000, an enormous sum if we consider the

value of money at that time, were scattered; though, through the

efforts of his friends, some of them were afterwards recovered, as

he said, “in manner out of a dunghill, in the corner of a church,

wherein very many were utterly spoyled by rotting, through the raine

continually for many years before falling on them, through the decayed

roof of that church, lying desolate and wast at this houre.” The “rare

and exquisitely-made instruments mathematicall,” the “strong and

faire quadrant of five foote semi-diameter;” the two globes, on one

of which “were set down divers comettes, their places and motions;”

the sea compasses; the magnet-stone “of great vertue;” the “watch

clock,” which measured the “360th part of an hour,” were all purloined,

“piecemeal divided,” or “barbarously spoyled and with hammers smit in

pieces.” Harland and Wilkinson, in their “Lancashire Folk-Lore,” say

that when the house was attacked, “it was with difficulty Dee and his

family escaped the fury of the rabble;” but this is a mistake, for,

as previously stated, they were at the time beyond the seas, and in

blissful ignorance of what was taking place.

Dee’s affairs were now in a deplorable condition. The destruction of

his library was a terrible calamity. He was involved in debt, his

creditors were becoming clamorous, and, as he laments, “the usury

devoureth me, and the score, talley, and booke debts doe dayly put me

to shame in many places and with many men.” His old friend and patron,

the Queen, who had not yet lost faith in his astrological powers and

discoveries, sent him in the year following his return “fiftie poundes

to keep Christmas with,” and promised him another “fiftie poundes”

out of her “prevy purse.” Many other friends sent him presents, in

all about £500; but he was still struggling in poverty, and craving

for some lucrative office, that he might free himself from his

difficulties. In his distress he memorialised the Queen, through the

Countess of Warwick, earnestly requesting that commissioners might be

appointed to inquire into and decide upon his claims. His indebtedness

then amounted to nearly £4,000, and the story he tells of the shifts

he had recourse to, to save his family from “hunger starving,” is

truly pathetic. He had been constrained, he says, “now and then to

send parcells of furniture and plate to pawne upon usury,” and when

these were gone, “after the same manner went my wife’s jewells of gold,

rings, braceletts, chaines, and other our rarities, under thraldom of

the usurer’s gripes, till _non plus_ was written upon the boxes at

home.” Upon the report the Queen “willed the Lady Howard to write some

words of comfort to his wife, and send some friendly tokens beside;”

she further sent through Mr. Candish (Cavendish) her “warrant by word

of mowth to assure him to do what he would in philosophie and alchemie,

and none shold chek, controll, or molest him,” and as a mark of her

regard, on two occasions, “called for him at his door” as she rode by.

About this time a domestic difficulty of a different nature occurred.

Dee’s nurse became “possessed,” and he had to try his skill in

exorcising what he believed to be the evil spirit, though, as the

result showed, with indifferent success. The incident is thus referred

to in his “Diary”:—

Aug. 2nd, 1590.—Nurs her great affliction of mynde.

Aug. 22nd.—Ann my nurse had long byn tempted by a wycked spirit:

but this day it was evident how she was possessed of him. God is,

hath byn, and shall be her protector and deliverer! Amen.

Aug. 25th.—Anne Frank was sorowful, well comforted, and stayed in

God’s mercyes acknowledging.

Aug. 26th.—At night I anoynted (in the name of Jesus) Anne Frank,

her brest with the holy oyle.

Aug. 30th.—In the morning she required to be anoynted, and I did

very devowtly prepare myself, and pray for vertue and powr, and

Christ his blessing of the oyle to the expulsion of the wycked;

and then twyse anoynted, the wycked one did resest a while.

Sep. 8th.—Nurse Anne Frank wold have drowned hirself in my well,

but by divine Providence I cam to take her up befor she was

overcome of the water.

Sep. 29th.—Nurse Anne Frank most miserably did cut her owne

throte, afternone abowt four of the clok, pretending to be in

prayer before her keeper, and suddenly and very quickly rising

from prayer, and going toward her chamber, as the mayden her

keeper thowt, but indede straight way down the stayrs into the

hall of the other howse, behinde the doore did that horrible act;

and the mayden who wayted on her at the stayr fote followed her,

and missed to fynd her in three or fowr places, tyll at length she

hard her rattle in her owne blud.

Dee tried hard to regain the parsonages and endowments of Upton and

Long Leadenham, of which Bonner had many years previously dispossessed

him, but he was “utterly put owt of hope for recovering them by the

Lord Archbishop and the Lord Threasorer.” Elizabeth had, on one

occasion, promised him the deanery of Gloucester, but objection was

raised on the ground of his not being in Holy Orders; subsequently he

had the promise of some small advowsons in the diocese of St David’s;

but the promise which was pleasant to the bear was roken to the hope.

Failing these, he applied for reversion of the mastership of the

Hospital of St. Cross, at Winchester. The Queen and the Lord Treasurer

were favourably disposed, and Mr. J. Eglinton Bailey, in his admirable

notes, to which we have before made reference, cites a Latin document

which he found among the State Papers, dated May, 1594, being a grant

to Wm. Brooke, Lord Cobham, K.G., of the next advowson of the hospital

of Holyrood, near Winchester, of the Queen’s gift, by the vacancy of

the See, to present John Dee, M.A., on the death or resignation of Dr.

Robert Bennett, the then incumbent. Bennett, however, did not die, or

did not resign in reasonable time, for Dee never got installed; or it

may be that the Archbishop (Whitgift) had interposed, for a month after

the “grant” just mentioned, we find in the “Diary” an entry in which

he thus gives vent to his feeling of mortification and disappointment,

after an interview with the Primate:—

June 29th, 1594.—After I had hard the Archbishop his answers and

discourses, and that after he had byn the last Sonday at Tybald’s

(Theobald’s) with the Quene and Lord Threaserer, I take myself

confounded for all suing or hoping for anything that was. And so

adieu to the court and courting tyll God direct me otherwise! The

Archbishop gave me a payre of sufferings to drinke. God be my help

as he is my refuge! Amen.

When Dee ceased to supplicate, his wife took up the parable, and with

much more satisfactory results. On the 7th of December, in the same

year, we read:—

Jane, my wife, delivered her supplication to the Quene’s Majestie,

as she passed out of the privy garden at Somerset House to go to

diner to the Savoy, to Syr Thomas Henedge. The Lord Admirall toke

it of the Quene. Her Majestie toke the bill agayn, and kept (it)

uppon her cushen; and on the 8th day, by the chief motion of the

Lord Admirall, and somewhat of the Lord Buckhurst, the Quene’s

wish was to the Lord Archbishop presently that I should have Dr.

Day his place in Powles (_i.e._, the Chancellorship of St. Paul’s).

Possibly the Queen or the Archbishop, or both, were getting wearied

with the constant appeals of their tedious and egotistical suitor, for

a month later occurs the entry:—

1595. Jan. 8th.—The Wardenship of Manchester spoken of by the Lord

Archbishop of Canterbury.

Feb. 5th.—My bill of Manchester offered to the Quene afore dynner

by Sir John Wolly to signe, but she deferred it.

April 18th.—My bill for Manchester Wardenship signed by the Quene,

Mr. Herbert offring it her.

And so the magician of Mortlake was commissioned to minister among the

Lancashire witches, and an exceedingly unpleasant time he had of it, as

we shall presently see.

Though the appointment was made, the patent was not yet sealed. Dr.

Chadderton did not actually relinquish the wardenship of Manchester

until the confirmation of his election to the see of Lincoln, May 24,

1595. Immediately after appears the entry in the “Diary”:—

May 25th, 26th, 27th.—The Signet, Privy Seale, and the Great Seale

of the Wardenship.

The old man was evidently too poverty-stricken to pay the fees, for he

significantly adds, “£3 12s. 0d. borrowed of my brother Arnold.”

At last the long-hoped-for preferment was secured, and the Warden elect

at once began to prepare for removal to his new sphere of duty. Though,

as before stated, the building of the College had been acquired by the

Earls of Derby, under the Confiscating Act of Edward VI., the Wardens

continued to reside there. On the 11th June Dee “wrote to the Erle of

Derby his secretary abowt Manchester College;” and on the 21st June he

makes the entry:—

The Erle of Derby his letter to Mr. Warren for the Colledge.

Mr. Warren being apparently the agent of the Earl, and the “secretary”

previously mentioned. Having thus put matters in train for the

occupation of his new home, he set about the letting or disposal of the

old one, for we read:—

July 1st.—The two brothers, Master Willemots, of Oxfordshere,

cam to talk of my howse-hyring. Master Baynton cam with Mistress

Katharyn Hazelwood, wife to Mr. Fuller.

Meantime the Manchester people, and more especially the fellows of

the College, were curious to know something about the new Warden,

of whom rumour had said so many strange things. On the 12th July he

records that “Mr. Goodier, of Manchester, cam to me;” and on the

28th July he received “a letter from Mr. Oliver Carter, Fellow of

Manchester College,” of whom we shall have more to say by-and-by. Mr.

Goodier, it may be presumed, was not altogether uninfluenced by worldly

considerations in thus paying his respects at Mortlake. The worthy

burgher was a man of some consequence in his way, and much given, it

is said, to the improvement of his temporal estate. He resided at the

“Ould Clough House,” a building adjacent to the College, “over anendst

the church,” as the Court Rolls of the day describe it, had served as

senior constable, and had also filled the more important office of

borough-reeve. He had, moreover, farmed the tithes of the Warden and

Fellows, and seems to have made a somewhat wide interpretation of his

lease, for shortly before he had prosecuted one of the Fellows for

withholding the surplice fees, which he claimed to have of right. It

is not unlikely, therefore, he had an ulterior object in journeying to

London and offering his civilities to Dee. A year or two before, he had

married a rich widow, Katharine, the relict of Ralph Sorrocold, and the

mother of John Sorrocold, at whose house, the Eagle and Child, opposite

Smithy Door, John Taylor, the “water poet,” when on his “Pennyless

Pilgrimage,” lodged, and whose wife he immortalised in his homely

rhymes—

I lodged at the Eagle and the Child,

Whereat my hostess (a good ancient woman)

Did entertain me with respect not common.

* * * * *

So Mistress Saracole, hostess kind,

And Manchester with thanks I left behind.

On the 31st July, the “very virtuous” Countess of Warwick, who

had proved her friendship for Dee by urging his claims upon the

consideration of the Queen, did this evening, as he says—

Thank her Matie in my name and for me for her gift of the

Wardenship of Manchester. She took it gratiously, and was sorry

that it was so far from hers; but that some better thing neer hand

shall be ffownd for me; and if opportunitie of tyme wold serve,

her Matie wold speak with me herself.

It is significantly added that “the firstfruits were forgiving by her

Matie,” which was fortunate, as it saved him the necessity of borrowing

money to pay them. Her Majesty, however, never found the “opportunitie

of tyme” to speak with her aged _protégé_, and Dee eventually left

without the satisfaction of a parting interview.

Dee’s prospects were now brightening, and, though late in the evening

of life, there was again a prospect of sunny weather. Misfortunes, it

is proverbially said, seldom come singly—the same rule, it would seem,

holds good in regard to prosperity—for scarcely had Dee obtained his

preferment when Providence added to his domestic bliss. A daughter

was born unto him (he was now in his 69th year), and the christening,

as may be supposed, was a great affair, the sponsors, who by the

way, all appeared by deputy, being the Lord Keeper—Sir Christopher

Hatton, it has been said, but more probably another Cheshire man, Sir

Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Chancellor, for Hatton had been in his

grave four years or more—Lady Mary Russell, Countess of Cumberland,

the mother of the stout-hearted Lady Anne Clifford, Dowager Countess

of Pembroke and Montgomery, of famous memory; and the Lady Frances

Walsingham, widow of Sir Philip Sidney, and the wife of the unfortunate

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, whom Elizabeth, in 1601, beheaded.

The time of the new Warden was now much occupied in visiting and

receiving visits. On the 13th, and again on the 22nd of September,

he was the guest of the Earl of Derby at Russell House, and on

the 9th Oct. he “dyned with Syr Walter Rawlegh, at Durham House,”

in the Strand. On the 25th Oct. we find him urging “Mr. Brofelde,

Atturny-General, for som land deteyned from the Coll.” (ege). Then come

the entries,—

Nov. 8th.—My goods sent by Percival toward Manchester.

Nov. 26th.—My wife and children all by coach toward Coventry.

Coventry was on the road towards Manchester. Finally, we have the great

mathematician himself following in their wake—

1595-6. Feb. 15.—I cam to Manchester a meridie nova 5.

The severance from old scenes and old associations must have been

a painful one. It could only have been dire necessity that induced

the vain and pedantic philosopher to forsake the pleasant vicinity

of Richmond; to leave the courtly gallants and the staid and erudite

_savants_ who had frequented his modest “mansion” to settle down

among the hard-headed, but uncultured and unappreciative people of

Manchester—to immure himself in a place that must have been even less

attractive then than it was a century or more after when Brummell’s

regiment was ordered there, and the Beau sold out rather than submit to

the infliction of being quartered in it. Abroad Dee had been welcomed

wherever he had gone, and received with all the state and courtly

ceremonial due to one of such prodigious learning. At Mortlake he

had enjoyed the sunshine of royal favour, had been honoured with the

frequent visits of the Queen and her Ministers, and accustomed to the

friendship and society of such polished wits as Walsingham and Raleigh,

and Cavendish and Sir Philip Sidney—

Sidney, than whom no gentler, braver man

His own delightful genius ever feigned,

And whom Spenser, in his “Shepheards’ Calendar,” named—

The President

Of noblenesse and chivalree.

At Manchester he had to deal with a rude, boisterous, and uncultivated

people, who openly reviled him—a rough metal that all his incantations

and alchemical skill could not transform into refined gold; and withal

he had to contend with a body of clergy who abhorred the unlawful arts

he was supposed to practice, and who treated him in consequence with

implacable hatred. Of a truth his position was not an enviable one.

Lancashire was at that time the great scene of religious conflict—the

battle-ground of angry polemics and fiercely-contending factions.

It was accounted as more given to Romanism than any other county

in England, and in the rural districts the Protestant cause seemed

rather declining than advancing. Dr. Chadderton, who preceded Dee in

the Wardenship, had carried on a vigorous persecution of those who

still adhered to the unreformed religion, the more obstinate of whom

he imprisoned in the New Fleet, a building adjoining his residence in

the College. He had further hit upon an ingenious way of convincing

these recusants of the error of their ways—as they would not attend

church to hear the sermons preached by the Puritanical Fellows he gave

orders to his clergy to read prayers in the apartments where they were

confined, especially at meal times, so that they had the pleasant

alternative of taking theological nourishment with their food or going

without victuals altogether. Chadderton’s Protestantism had been

intensified by his exile during the Marian persecutions, and as Dee had

been deprived of his rectories of Upton and Long Leadenham, and had

suffered imprisonment at the hands of Bonner, it was not unreasonably

believed that he would follow in the steps of his predecessor, and be

no less zealous in hunting up seminary priests, and punishing those

who resorted to their secret masses. But Dee’s church principles were

not particularly pronounced. Devoted to mathematical and scientific

pursuits, he did not greatly concern himself with either Popish or

Puritan theology; preaching was not in his line, and he cared little

for those controversial sermons which only provoked strife between the

professors of the old and the new faith, and excited bitterness in

the minds of all. He was content to leave the Papists to the watchful

care of the powerful Earl of Derby and their opponents to do as they

pleased, provided they gave him no trouble. His colleagues were greatly

angered at his lack of zeal, and interminable quarrels were the

consequence.

Saturday, the 20th of February, 1596, was a great day in Manchester,

and one to be held in remembrance. The church bells filled the air with

their clanging melodies, and the groups of curious onlookers at the

church stile and in the grass-grown graveyard denoted that something

unusual was astir. And there was, for the great philosopher whose

marvellous skill had astonished half the Courts of Europe, and about

whom rumour had told so many curious tales, was come to preside over

the ancient College, and direct the ecclesiastical affairs of the

parish, and on that raw February morning was to be installed in his

office. Manchester had never seen such a Warden before, and has not

seen such another since. The ceremony, we are told, was gone through

with “great pomp and solemnity.” Of those assisting at it were Edmund

Prestwich, of Hulme; Richard Massey, the representative of a family of

some consequence living “in the Milnegate, neere unto a street comonly

called Toad-lane;” George Birch, of Birch, in Rusholme, the brother

of Robert Birch, one of the Fellows, and nephew of William Birch,

who at one time had been the Warden of the College; Ralph Byrom and

Thomas Byrom, wealthy traders of the Kersal stock; Ralph Houghton,

another trader; Henry Hardy, and Richard Nugent, who afterwards became

a benefactor to the town, but whose bequest, through the negligence

of trustees, has long since been lost. Dr. Hibbert mentions these

names, though he does not give his authority. Dee, however, was fond

of ostentation and display, and we may be sure would omit nothing

that would impart dignity and importance to the proceedings. We are

not told which of the Fellows were present. Nowell, who was then in

his 90th year, would be too old and infirm to undertake the toil of a

journey from London; but the bold and outspoken Puritan divine, Oliver

Carter, would of a certainty be in his place; and probably with him

would be his equally zealous coadjutor, Thomas Williamson; though both

must have been greatly exercised in spirit at the thought of God’s

heritage being lorded over by one of such questionable antecedents.

Humphrey Chetham had not then amassed a fortune, and acquired fame as a

reformer of ecclesiastical abuses. He was only in his sixteenth year;

but he may have been, and very likely was, among the spectators, and in

his young mind may have wondered how and by what mysterious influences

so valuable a preferment had fallen to one who, not having obtained

ordination, had not even received authority to preach.

The Manchester as Dee saw it must have presented a very different

aspect to the Manchester of to-day. Leland, who had visited the place

sixty years previously, described it, in his “Itinerary,” as “the

fairest, best builded, quickest, and most populous town in Lancashire,”

which, by the way, was not saying very much, seeing that, as compared

with other parts of the kingdom, the county was thinly-peopled and

ill-cultivated, and the neighbourhood of the town little else than

extensive moors, mosses, and quagmires, where the stranger rarely

adventured himself, and so “very wild and dangerous” that Bishop

Downham pleaded its inaccessibility as a reason for seldom or never

visiting it. The extent of the town proper could have been little more

than that of an inconsiderable village of the present day, for though,

unfortunately, there is no plan of it as then existing, the enumeration

of the streets in the old Court Rolls of the manor enables us to form a

tolerably accurate estimate of its limits. Within a few hundred yards

of the Church the whole of the business of the place was located, and

what was then town was but a congeries of crooked lanes and devious

by-ways, with quaint black and white half-timbered dwellings standing

on either side in an irregular, in-and-out, haphazard sort of way, and

some very much inclined to “stand-at-ease,” yet rendered picturesque

by their very irregularity and their innumerable architectural caprices

and fantasies, their queer-looking and curiously-carved gables, their

oddly-projecting oriels and cunningly-devised recesses, and the varied

and broken sky-lines of their roofs, so different to those dull, dreary

uniformities of brick the present generation is compelled to gaze upon.

Deansgate, Market Sted Lane, and Long Millgate were the principal

streets. These stretched irregularly towards the open country, and from

them a few narrow intricate lanes branched off in the direction of the

Church and the College. On the east and south sides of the churchyard

were then, as now, several public-houses, where the bride ales and

wedding feasts were held, and to restrain the extravagances of which

numerous sumptuary laws had to be enacted. Round the Market Sted were

the shops and “stallings” of the principal traders, who, clad in their

own fustian, measured out their manufactured wares and sent out their

pack-horsemen, with tingling bells, to sell them wherever and whenever

they could find a buyer. Here also were located the “booths” in which

the Portmotes and the Courts Leet and Baron of the manorial lords were

held, and contiguous thereto were the Pillory, the Whipping Post,

and the Stocks, where rogues and dishonest and drunk and disorderly

townsmen were punished. On the north side of the church—Back o’th’

Church, as it was called—between the churchyard and the College gates,

stood the bull oak, where bulls were usually baited. The butts for

archery practice, where every man between 16 and 60 had to exercise

himself in the use of the good yew bow, were on the outskirts of

the town, one being on the south side, where Deansgate merged into

Aldport Lane, and the other, at Collyhurst, on the north. The cockpit

stood on what was then called the “lord’s waste,” the vacant land in

the rear of the Market Sted, which still retains the name of Cockpit

Hill. Hanging Ditch was, as its name implied, a ditch, part of the old

moat or fosse connecting the Irwell and the Irk, down which the water

still flowed at a considerable depth below the footway, Toad Lane and

Cateaton Street being but a continuation of it. Over this old and then

disused watercourse was a stone bridge, the arch of which may still

be seen—the Hanging Bridge, so named from the drawbridge which had

preceded it, where officers were stationed to see that horses and cows

did not pass over into the churchyard. Near the bridge was the smithy,

which gave the name to Smithy Door and Smithy Bank. In Smithy Door,

near the entrance to the Market Sted, was the town pump or conduit,

fed from a natural spring, near the top of the present Spring Gardens,

where the good wives of the town went for their water, and waited their

“cale” till they got it, gossiping and quarrelling with each other the

while. At the foot of Smithy Bank was Salford Bridge—the only bridge

over the Irwell connecting the two towns—a structure of three arches,

and so narrow that foot-passengers had occasionally to take refuge in

little recesses while vehicles passed along. In the centre of it was

the dungeon, which in earlier days had served the purpose of a chapel.

Withy Grove was in truth a group of withies, the old “Seven Stars,” and

a few other dwellings, being all that existed to give the character of

street. At the higher end was Withingreave Hall, the town house of the

Hulmes of Reddish, progenitors of William “Hulme the Founder,” with its

gardens, orchard, and outbuilding, and beyond a pleasant rural lane led

on to Shudehill. Market Sted Lane, a narrow and tortuous thoroughfare,

extended no further than the present Brown Street, Mr. Lever’s house,

which occupied the site of the White Bear, standing in what was then

the open country. The picturesque old black and white houses that

bordered each side had their pleasant gardens in rear; and beyond,

towards Withy Grove in one direction and Deansgate in the other, were

meadows and pasture fields. In one of those fields, on the south side,

was the mansion of the Radcliffes, surrounded by a moat that gave

the name to Pool Fold, and which was oftentimes the scene of much

mob-justice and very much misery, for here was placed the ducking-stool

for the punishment of scolds and disorderly women,—

On the long plank hangs o’er the muddy pool,

That stool, the dread of ev’ry scolding quean.

From its frequent use we may suppose that in those days the female

portion of the community were neither very amiable nor very virtuous.

Long Millgate ran parallel with the Irk, an irregular line of houses

with little plots of garden behind forming the boundary on each side,

and a little way up a rural lane, shaded with hedgerow trees, branched

off on the right, known as the Milner’s Lane—the present Miller Street.

The Irk, a pure and sparkling stream, was noted for its “luscious

eels.” The Masters of the Grammar School had the exclusive fishery

rights from Ashley Lane to Hunt’s Bank, and the Warden and Fellows

of the College might have envied them their monopoly had they not

themselves been able to obtain their Lenten fare from the equally clear

and well-stocked waters of the Irwell, which then glided pleasantly

by, innocent of dyes and manufacturing refuse. Altogether the place

presented more the semi-rural aspect of a country village than an

important town, as Leland represented it to be. Picturesque, it is

true, yet it possessed many unpleasant features withal. The streets

and lanes were ill-paved and full of deep ruts and claypits, for every

man who wanted daub to repair his dwelling dug a hole before his

door to obtain it. The eye, too, was offended by unsightly cesspools

and dunghills that were to be seen against the Church walls, on the

bridges, and, in fact, at every turn.

[Illustration: THE COLLEGE, MANCHESTER.]

Though some of the more remote parts of the parish were barren and

uncultivated, the immediate environments of the town were characterised

by much that was exceedingly beautiful, with a wilder sort of

loveliness, increased by the natural irregularities of the surface,

and the great masses of foliage, part of the old forest of Arden, that

extended far away. On the north, Strangeways Park, with its umbraged

heights, its sunny glades, and shady dingles, stretched away towards

Broughton, Cheetham, and Red Bank. Near thereto was Collyhurst Park,

with the common, on which the townsmen had the right to pasture their

pigs, and where the town swine-herd daily attended to his porcine

charge; and the deep sequestered clough through which the Irk wound

its sinuous course, its surface chequered by the shadows of the

overhanging hazels and brushwood; and beyond, the extensive chase of

Blackley, with its deer leaps, and its aërie of eagles, of herons, and

of hawks. On the south was the stately old mansion of Aldport, standing

in a park of 95 acres, occupying the site of Campfield and Castlefield,

and reaching down to the banks of the Irwell, with the great parks of

Ordsal and Hulme on the one side and those of Garratt and Ancoats on

the other.

It can hardly be said that among the inhabitants a very high state of

civilisation prevailed. If thrifty and industrious, they were certainly

not very refined, nor blessed with “pregnant wits,” as good Hugh Oldham

affirmed, nor yet remarkable for their moral excellence. Boisterous

and laughter-loving, they delighted in outdoor games and uproarious

sports,—the wild merriment of the day being oftentimes followed by

the wilder merriment of the evening. Bull-baiting, wrestling, and

cock-fighting were the leading diversions, “unlawful gaming” and

“lewdness” were frequently complained of, and the ale-houses, to

which the more dissolute resorted, were the scenes of riots and feuds

that not only caused annoyance and scandal to the more well-disposed,

but endangered the public peace to a greater degree than we can now

easily conceive. Under such circumstances it is hardly surprising that

they should have entertained little reverence for their spiritual

pastors, many of whom, by the way, were only a degree less ignorant and

disorderly than themselves, for in those days the curate of Stretford

kept an ale-house, the rector of Chorlton eked out a scanty subsistence

by doing a little private pawnbroking, while the parson of Blackley was

“passing rich” on a stipend of £2 3s. 4d. a year.

Such was the Manchester of which Dee had become the ecclesiastical

head. However apathetic he may have been as to the spiritual affairs

of the parishioners committed to his care, he was by no means wanting

in energy when his own temporal interests were concerned. Scarcely had

he taken up his abode at the College than we find him entertaining at

dinner two influential tenants—Sir John Byron, of Clayton, and his

son, and bargaining with them about the price of hay before the grass

was actually grown. A month later he records the “possession taking

in Salford,” and he quickly found himself in litigation with the

College tenants of some of the lands there. The tenants were a source

of trouble, and oftentimes disturbed the even tenor of his way, while

the collecting of his tithes was not unfrequently a cause of anxiety

also. He complains of being “occupied with low controversies, as with

Holden of Salford, and the tenants of Sir John Biron, of Faylsworth,”

of “much disquietnes and controversy about the tythe-corn of Hulme,” of

the “Cromsall corne-tyth” being “dowted of and half denyed,” and then

“utterly denyed,” and of his riding to Sir John Byron “for a quietnes,”

and “to talk with him abowt the controversy between the Colledg and

his tenants.” Notwithstanding these unhappy disputations he had some

pleasant days. Thus, on the 26th June (1596), as he tells us—

The Erle of Derby, with the Lady Gerard, Sir (Richard) Molynox

and his lady, dawghter to the Lady Gerard, Master Hawghton, and

others, cam suddenly uppon (me), after three of the clok. I made

them a skoler’s collation, and it was taken in good part. I

browght his honor and the ladyes to Ardwyk grene toward Lyme, as

Mr. Legh his howse, 12 myles of, &c.

Dee was eager for sympathy and approval of his favourite schemes and

pursuits, and, being a man of the world, he knew the value of such

friendships. As he was, moreover, given to hospitality, there is little

doubt the “skoler’s collation” would be as sumptuous as the College

larder would afford. A few days later (July 5) he was visited by Mr.

Harry Savill, the antiquary, and Mr. Christopher Saxton, the eminent

chorographer, who had come to make a survey of the town; and on the

following day, Dee, with Saxton and some others, rode over to Hough

Hall, in Withington, the mansion of Sir Nicholas Mosley, who had in

the same year become the purchaser of the manor of Manchester. The

survey was completed on the 10th July, and on the 14th Saxton “rode

away.” It is much to be regretted that no copy of Saxton’s work, so

far as is known, has been preserved; for an authentic plan of the town

in Elizabeth’s reign would be a valuable addition to the topographical

records of Manchester, and would enable us to see exactly what

progress was made in the extension of the town between that time and

the Commonwealth period, when another survey—the earliest reliable one

extant—was taken.

Before the close of the first year of his Wardenship, Dee was invited

to exercise the power he was commonly believed to possess of casting

out devils; but he prudently declined. About two years previously five

members of the household of Mr. Nicholas Starkey, of Cleworth, in

Leigh parish, became demoniacally possessed, through the influence,

as was said, of a conjuror named Hartley. Margaret Byrom, of Salford,

who happened to be on a visit at Cleworth, became infected with the

malady. This occurred on the 9th January, 1596-7; and at the end

of the month she returned to her friends at Salford, when Dee was

importuned to deliver her from the evil spirit which tormented her.

The Warden, however, refused, telling her friends he would practise no

such unlawful arts as they desired; but, instead, advised they should

“call for some godlye preachers, with whom he should consult concerning

a public or private fast,” and at the same time he sharply rebuked

Hartley for following his contraband calling. Possibly the failure

of his previous attempt to exorcise the spirit in the case of “Nurse

Anne Frank” had induced a wholesome prudence on his part, though his

refusal made him unpopular with his parishioners, who were offended

at his withholding the relief they believed it was in his power to

give, and his Puritan colleagues took advantage of his unpopularity to

make his life miserable. Oliver Carter, who had held his fellowship

for more than a quarter of a century, and had become the recognised

head of the Presbyterian faction in the district, was chief among the

malcontents, and a sore thorn in the side the doctor found him. Carter

disliked alchemical philosophers as much as he hated Popish recusants,

and denounced the Warden’s intercourse with the spirit world as a

scandal upon the Church. The Presbyterian Fellow had little respect

for lawfully-constituted authority, and his open resistance in matters

of ceremony had aforetime brought him in collision even with the

cautious and temperate Bishop Chadderton, who had found it necessary

to enforce some little submission to ecclesiastical law. It is not

surprising, therefore, that he should have shown little regard for the

authority of the new comer, whom he looked upon as a Court spy, and

detested accordingly. He was a continuous source of annoyance, and his

contumacious demeanour, his “impudent and evident disobedience in the

Church,” and persistent obstructiveness are frequently complained of,

thus—

Jan. 22, 1579.—Olyver Carter’s thret to sue me with proces from

London, &c., was this Satterday in the church declared to Robert

Cleg.

Sept. 25.—Mr. Olyver Carter his impudent and evident disobedience

in the church.

Sept. 26.—He repented, and some pacification was made.

Nov. 14.—The fellows would not grant me the £5 for my howse-rent,

as the Archbishop had graunted; and our foundation commandeth an

howse.

July 17, 1600.—I willed the fellows to com to me by nine the next

day.

July 18.—They cam. It is to be noted of the great pacification

unexpected of man which happened this Friday; for in the forenone

(betwene nine and ten), when the fellows were greatly in doubt

of my heavy displeasure, by reason of their manifold misusing of

themselves against me, I did with all lenity enterteyn them, and

shewed the most part of the things that I had browght to pass at

London for the colledg good, and told Mr. Carter (going away) that

I must speak with him alone. Robert Leghe (one of the four clerks)

and Charles Legh (the brother of Robert, and receiver) were by.

Secondly, the great sute betwene Redich (Redditch) men and me was

stayed, and Mr. Richard Holland his wisdom. Thirdly, the organs

uppon condition were admitted. And, fourthly, Mr. Williamson’s

resignation granted for a preacher to be gotten from Cambridge.

Reconciliation was thus effected, but it was not long before there was

a renewal of hostilities, for, under date Sept. 11, we find—

Mr. Holland, of Denton, Mr. Gerard, of Stopford (Stockport), Mr.

Langley, &c., commissioners from the Bishop of Chester, authorised

by the Bishop of Chester, did call me before them in the Church

abowt thre of the clok, after none, and did deliver to me certayne

petitions put up by the fellows against me to answer before the

18th of this month. I answered them all codem tempore, and yet

they gave me leave to write at leiser.

Amid these harassing anxieties and unseemly disputations with the

unruly Fellows, Dee’s alchemical studies were not neglected. He had

secured another medium in the place of Kelly—Bartholomew Hickman,

who turned out to be nearly as great a knave, though not nearly half

so clever as his predecessor, and, losing confidence, Dee discharged

him and burnt all the records of what he had seen and heard in the

wonderful show-stone. The next day Roger Kooke, who had previously been

in the service of the philosopher, and to whom he had revealed “the

great secret of the elixir of the salt of metals,” offered “the best of

his skill and powre, in the practises chymicall.” He was quickly set

to work, but young Arthur Dee finding by chance among his papers what

seemed a plot against the father, he was charged with the conspiracy,

when Dee cried, “_O Deus libera nos a malo!_ All was mistaken, and

we are reconcyled godly;” and he again dreamed of his “working the

philosopher’s stone.” He would appear, however, to have subsequently

parted with Kooke, for before his death Hickman had been restored to

favour.

Though devoted to scientific pursuits, it must not be supposed that

the Warden neglected his official duties, or that he was by any means

unmindful of the secular interests of the Collegiate body. His business

exactitude and active zeal in this direction, however, did not always

meet with the approval of his neighbours, or at least of such of them

as happened to be tithe-farmers or College tenants. In May of the year

following his induction we find him with his curate, Sir Robert Barber

(clerics commonly affected the prefix of “Sir” in those days), Robert

Tilsey, the parish clerk, and “diverse of the town of diverse ages,”

making a careful perambulation of the bounds of the parish with the

view of determining its exact limits, a procedure that somewhat alarmed

Mr. Langley, the rector of the adjoining parish of Prestwich, who smelt

litigation in Dee’s anxiety “for avoiding of undue encroaching of any

neighbourly parish, one on the other.” On another occasion he was

careful to note that—

At midnight (January 22, 1599), the College gate toward Hunt’s

Hall did fall, and some parte of the wall going downe the lane—

the “lane” being the narrow passage that led from the north side

of the church, by the venerable tree where bulls were baited, and

past the prison to Irk Bridge, then known as Hunt’s Bank, a name it

retained until modern times, when it was superseded by the present

Victoria Street. The gate-house, which, as before stated, was at one

time used as a workhouse, stood on this, the westerly side of the great

quadrangle, the gates opening into Hunt’s Bank. Though they have long

since disappeared, the evidences of their former existence may still be

traced in the wall.

After an absence in London he paid an official visit to the Grammar

School, where he “fownd great imperfection in all and every of

the scholers, to his great grief,” a record that must be taken as

reflecting on Dr. Cogan, the head master, whose time appears to have

been divided between the teaching of youth and the practice of physic.

In August, 1597, the “Erle and Cowntess of Derby” having taken up their

abode at Aldport Lodge, Dee entertained them at “a banket at my lodging

at the Colledge hora 4½.” There are many other entries of visits from

distinguished personages, among them Sir Urian Legh, of Adlington,

the reputed hero of the ballad of “The Spanish Lady;” Sir George

Booth, sheriff of Cheshire; Mr. Wortley, of Wortley. Probably, also,

Camden, the historian, for it is recorded that when that distinguished

antiquary visited the town, Dee pointed out to him the inscription of

some Roman remains at Castle Field, attributable to the Frisian cohort,

which occupied the station there. While dispensing his hospitalities

the poor old man was suffering from lack of money, his financial

difficulties being as great as ever, and we find him raising loans on

the security of his diminished stock of plate, &c.—

Feb. 17, 1597.—Delivered to Charles Legh the elder (the receiver

of College before referred to), my silver tankard with the cover,

all dubble gilt, of the Cowntess of Herford’s gift to Francis her

goddaughter, waying 22oz., great waight, to lay to pawne in his

own name to Robert Welshman, for iiijli tyll within two dayes

after May-day next. My dowghter Katherin and John Crocker and I

myself were at the delivery of it and waying of it in my dyning

chamber—it was wrapped in a new handkercher cloth.

Many similar transactions are recorded—indeed, he appears to have been

continually borrowing money from his friends, and almost as frequently

lending his books to them. Dee was certainly not one of those who

believe that “imparted knowledge doth diminish learning’s store,” for

he was ever ready to place his literary treasures at the service of

others, and frequent entries occur of his lending rare and valuable

works to those he thought capable of understanding and appreciating

them.

It was some little relief to him when, on the 2nd December, 1600, his

son Arthur had a grant of the chapter clerkship, though before he could

pay £6 for the patent he

Borrowed of Mr. Edmund Chetham, the schoolmaster (the uncle of

Humphrey, the founder) £10 for one yere uppon plate, two bowles,

two cupps with handles, all silver, waying all 32oz. Item, two

potts with cover and handells, double gilt within and without,

waying 16oz.

The Warden’s pecuniary embarrassments kept him in discredit with his

parishioners, who naturally looked with disfavour upon an ecclesiastic

that did not pay his debts, especially when, as they believed, it

required only a very little closer intimacy with the evil one to enable

him to do so. The fellows maintained their hostility, his neighbours

became more and more unfriendly, the urgency of his creditors was

oppressive, and on every hand he was assailed with suspicions of

sorcery. The nine years he was in Manchester was the most wretched

portion of his life. Unable to bear the odium attaching to him, he

petitioned King James that he might be brought to trial, “and by

a judicial sentence be freed from the revolting imputations” his

astrological and other inquiries had brought upon him; but Elizabeth’s

wary successor, who detested his mysteries, would have nothing to say

to him. Weary with the struggle, he quitted Manchester in November,

1604, and once more sought shelter in the house at Mortlake. Of the

closing years of his chequered life little is known, but that little

is sad enough. The friends of former years had died or forgotten him,

and the new generation of Court favourites left him to pass his few

remaining days in poverty, sickness, and desolation. After all his

tricks and conjurations the once haughty philosopher was reduced to

such miserable straits that he oftentimes had to sell some of his books

before he could obtain the means wherewith to purchase a meal. The

prediction of the Earl of Salisbury that he “would shortly go mad” was

nearly being realised, for in the midst of his poverty, and while on

the very verge of the grave, he resumed his occult practices, in which

he was aided by the formerly discarded Bartholomew Hickman. At last,

in poverty and neglect, wearied and worn out, the miserable wreck of

an ill-spent life, he, in 1608, passed away at the advanced age of 81,

and was buried in the chancel of the church at Mortlake without any

tombstone or other memorial to preserve his name.

[Illustration: MORTLAKE CHURCH.]

Of the numerous family that had once gathered round his hearth few

remained at the time of his dissolution, death or estrangement having

removed nearly all. His son Michael had died in infancy. His busy,

shrewish wife died on the 23rd March, 1605. Of the other seven children

Katherine was the only one who clung to him to the last. Rowland, on

completing his studies at the Manchester Grammar School, obtained

an exhibition at Oxford, but of his subsequent career nothing is

known, nor, with the exception of Arthur, can we trace anything of

the after-history of the others. Arthur, his first-born, resided in

Manchester for some time, and subsequently practised as a physician.

He married Isabella, one of the daughters of Edmund Prestwich, of

Hulme Hall, and afterwards was chosen physician to Michael III., the

first Czar of Russia, and for many years he resided in that country,

where his wife died, July 6, 1634, after having borne him 12 children.

Returning to England, he was sworn physician to Charles I., and located

himself at Norwich, where he continued to reside until his death,

September, 1651. Anthony à Wood, in his _Athenæ_, mentions that Arthur

Dee, when an old man, spoke in full confidence of his father’s goodness

and sincerity, and affirmed that in his youth, when he had initiated

him in some of his mystical pursuits, he had seen enough to satisfy him

that he had discovered many marvellous secrets, and only lacked the

means to make them available. The son may not have been altogether an

impartial witness, but it would be unfair to judge the father by the

standard of the present day.

Dee lived in an age when everybody believed in the occult sciences,

and in the power of summoning visitants from the world of shadows by

incantations and other mysterious means. Half a century before his

death he had been pre-eminent for his learning, his eloquence, and

his scientific attainments, and he was undoubtedly one of the great

lights of his era. Camden styled him _nobilis mathematicus_, and he

may fairly be accounted the prophet of the arts which Bacon and Newton

were afterwards to reveal. A ripe scholar, well skilled in chemistry,

mathematics, and mechanics, and the master of the whole circle of the

liberal arts as then understood—

He sought and gathered for our use the true.

He was one of the first who accepted the theory of Copernicus, and he

successfully performed the labour of correcting the Gregorian calendar.

He was, moreover, a good linguist, an earnest antiquary, and a diligent

searcher of those records which tend to elucidate the history of the

country, and to him is due the credit of first suggesting the formation

of a “National Library,” for the preservation of those ancient writings

in which lie “the treasures of all antiquity, and the everlasting

seeds of continual excellency.” Paradoxical as it may seem, there

was with the splendour and universality of his genius much childlike

simplicity; and his credulous confiding nature often exposed him to the

iniquitous arts of those about him; while his reckless extravagance,

his love of ostentatious display, his debts, and his carelessness of

the method which brought relief, kept him in continuous disquiet. He

was part of the age in which he lived in that he was fond of alchemy, a

believer in the divining-rod, and a devout practitioner of the astral

science; but it is to be feared that his straitened circumstances

sometimes prompted him to have recourse to tricks and artifices that

his better judgment condemned. He was a strange mixture of pride and

gentleness, of goodness and credulity. He discoursed learnedly with

foreign philosophers, tended his little folks in their sicknesses,

and soothed them in their childish griefs and sorrows; gazed into the

glittering depths of his magic mirror and smiled good temperedly at his

shrewish wife’s scoldings; dispensed his hospitalities and gossiped

freely with the aristocratic personages who sought his society, and

pawned his property to pay for their entertainment; contended with

an archbishop and sought peace with the irrepressible Carter and his

unruly associates; but we willingly forget the weaknesses and the

foibles of the man when we remember the genius and the learning of

the philosopher. With all his failings Dee possessed much kindness of

heart, and though Manchester may not have been greatly advantaged by

the ecclesiastical supervision of the “Wizard Warden,” he was yet, in

many respects, much to be preferred to the needy Scotch courtier whom

King James appointed as his successor.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: BEESTON CASTLE.]

[Illustration]